CHAPTER 1 – In Which the Girls Arrive

Author's Note: Howdy! SherlockxMasquerade here, with an IMPORTANT note which you really ought to read. Ahem. This fanfiction was co-written by my good friend who goes by the code name of Delores. Here she is.

(Girl with long dark hair wearing a black suit and Men in Black sunglasses appears and waves)

Yup, that's her. So, anyway, we're both fond of the Sherlock Holmes stories and we decided to write a story where we fall into his universe and...um...well, that's not been decided yet. In fact, the thing does not have a coherent plot yet. YET. Yet is the key word. So...hang in there. If enough people review...we might continue it. Heh.

And finally, the disclaimer: Pirates of the Caribbean, Doctor Who, and any other copyrighted stuff is not ours. Sherlock Holmes is not ours either. If he was, he'd be doing our math for us. Yeah. (Nods) So, you needn't worry about that.

Two sleeping bags, two pillows, six Coke® cans, and several empty popcorn bags were strewn about the family room floor. Some unknown movie – we think Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest – was playing on the TV. And amidst all of this chaos sat two girls, commenting cheerfully on the actions of the characters in the movie.

"Well," said the first one, a 14-year-old with dark brown hair, light brown skin and glasses, "Jack certainly made a stupid move there. And everyone says he's such a great pirate captain!"

"Hmm," was the sleepy response from her friend. "Maybe we should go to bed now," she continued.

"ARE YOU CRAZY?!? We're only in the middle of the movie! And we still have to watch the other two Doctor Who episodes after this! And then we must sneak through the darkness like ninjas down to the garage in order to get the other box of sodas!"

"Ugh. Fine. Let's go get the sodas now, 'cause I need the sugar to stay awake."

"OKAY! Onward HO!" The 14-year-old jumped to her feet and tightened the belt of her fuzzy red bathrobe. "Come on, Delores! You're right, you do need more caffeine. You look really sleepy."

"I may need more caffeine, but it's the last thing YOU need, Kira," her friend groaned. "What time is it anyway?"

"Uh…" Kira glanced at her watch. "2:30. Why?"

"I WAS hoping to get some sleep tonight…"

"Sleep? Sleep? Whatever is that foreign term? Sleepovers, mon ami, are not for SLEEPING! They are for…" The teenager gesticulated wildly with her arm. "Eating! Watching movies! Playing board games! Doing random hyper stuff! Not SLEEPING!"

"Whatever. Let's just go get the soda."

"Okay." Kira glanced at her friend. "Actually, you look really beat. How about I go get the soda and you stay here and cheer my favorite characters on?" She pointed at the TV screen, where Will Turner, Captain Jack Sparrow, and ex-Commodore Norrington were fighting a three-way battle.

"Works for me. I think it takes less energy to cheer, anyway. And hurry back with that caffeine."

Her friend gave her an enthusiastic thumbs-up, which was ignored since Delores had turned over and buried her face in her pillow. Kira raised an eyebrow.

"…That's not cheering…"

"It's the best I can do. Now, go get the soda before I do it for you!"

"Okay!!" Whirling around, Kira darted towards the door and flung it open, only to come to a sharp halt.

"Um…Delores?!" she asked in a slightly panicked tone of voice.

"What?" Delores groaned sleepily. "Do you have the soda yet?"

"No, I haven't even left. Wanna know why?"

"Not really."

Kira told her anyway. "The hallway's disappeared! We're in an alternate universe!"

"Huh?"

Kira watched a horse and carriage trot by on the street that had suddenly appeared in place of the hall. "Yeah…it looks like we're on a period movie set and…IS THAT SHERLOCK HOLMES??!"

"What?!" her friend yelled, finally showing some signs of life. She dashed from the family room and pushed her friend aside. "Show me!!"

"There, in that window…hmm. Looks suspiciously like the Jeremy Brett version." Kira adjusted her glasses and looked closer. "Hey, look at the number on that door. 221B!"

"Weird. It's probably some guy dressed up in a costume."

"NO! No, I'm sure it's really Sherlock Holmes. It must be! He looks JUST LIKE Brett!Holmes, and Brett died in 1995!!"

"Right, Kira. I told you you didn't need more caffeine. That's weird…the hall does seem to have disappeared. What are all of those horses and carriages doing going by in the street?"

"Taking people places," was the blatantly obvious response. "Hey! I know! Let's go find out if that guy really is Holmes!" Kira started to step out into the street.

"Kira, I already know he isn't Holmes! Holmes is a fictional character! I don't need to go traipsing out onto some movie set to find out that he isn't Sherlock Holmes! Besides, the man will probably think we're idiots when we tell him who we thought he was!"

"Well…" Kira looked thoughtful for a moment. "We'll just…um…" She trailed off, then suddenly exclaimed, "It can't hurt to ASK, can it?"

"If it'll make you shut up, we can go ask. But then I'm really going to bed."

Kira assumed a hurt expression. "Delores! You're so cruel. Very well. Fine. I'll go ask. You can hang back and laugh at me…heartless fiend."

"Just on the chance that he is Holmes, I think I'll come with you."

"YAY!" Kira tackled her friend in a hug. "YOU ROCK!"

"That is, if you don't kill me first."

Kira released her abruptly, and her left eye twitched. "Why is that EVERY TIME I hug somebody enthusiastically, they accuse me of attacking them?? It's weird! Am I that exuberant?"

"Never mind. Let's just go." And with that, Delores headed across the street, with Kira trailing eagerly after her.

After they had reached the doorstep and Delores had knocked, Kira looked back at the street and frowned. "Um…Delores…Two things that should be on the top of your 'to-know' list right now."

"Lemme guess. Our hair's a mess and we're in our pajamas."

"Um…no. But you got the second one right!" Kira congratulated her. "Yes, we're in our pajamas. You're barefoot, and I am in my socks. That was not on the list of things that should be on the top of your 'to-know' list. But anyway, on top of that…the doorway back to the family room, on the other side of the street, has just disappeared."

"Why," Delores asked slowly, "does that freak me out?"

"I dunno. Why does anything inspire emot – HIIIIIIIIIIIII!" Kira exclaimed as the door opened, revealing an older woman with graying hair who was holding a feather duster. The woman blinked.

"Who are you?" she demanded. Kira frowned.

"Hmm, you look nice enough, not the sort to throw children who have accidentally been transported to another universe out into the street, therefore I represent queen and country!" she chirped. Delores and the woman stared at her.

"Kira, you sound like a raving lunatic," Delores whispered under her breath. She tried unsuccessfully to comb the tangles out of her long, straight brown hair with her fingers. Kira unobtrusively stepped on her friend's foot.

"Shh! I do NOT. I'm blatantly paraphrasing Doctor Who, is all." She grinned at the woman. "So, can we come in?"

The woman looked at them doubtfully. "Um…I suppose…are you here to see Sherlock Holmes, by any chance?"

"Who else would we be here to see?" Delores asked, ignoring the fact that Kira had let out a whoop of victory and was now doing a small victory dance on the front porch for all the world to see. "This is getting weirder by the minute," she muttered under her breath.

"Ah. In that case…come in," the woman said after glancing doubtfully at their attire. "You're not…from around here, are you?"

"NOOOO! However did you guess?" Kira asked brightly. "We're from an alternate universe! Crossed the Void, we did! Got lotsa Void stuff all around us now, Precious, yeses we doses -"

"QUIT WITH THE BLATANT PARAPHRASING OF DOCTOR WHO ALREADY!!!"

Looking thoroughly chastened, Kira followed her friend up the stairs. Delores, after glancing around, grinned.

"This is cool!" she announced. Kira brightened up.

"Yes it is! And you thought it wasn't Sherlock Holmes!" she accused her.

"I'm still having my doubts. But it does look pretty authentic," the other girl admitted.

By this time, they had reached the landing. Walking down the hall, the woman stopped and knocked on a door.

"Mr. Holmes? Two young ladies to see you."

"Send them in," came the muffled response from inside. The woman nodded and opened the door.

()-()-()

When Mrs. Hudson had announced that there were two young ladies to see him, Sherlock Holmes had become somewhat hopeful that it was a case. As it was, he had not had a case for weeks, and Dr. Watson was away on a trip, so he didn't have anyone to keep him company. And, as anyone who's ever read the books knows, a bored Holmes is not a good thing. But he was hardly expecting to see what entered his sitting-room.

The first girl was tall, with green eyes, long dark hair, and a sleepy expression on her face. She was wearing light blue pants with a white star pattern and a long-sleeved light blue shirt with a pink star on the front. She stopped in her tracks when she saw Holmes, staring at him with no small amount of astonishment on her face.

"Kira…come in here," she said slowly. A voice issued from the hall.

"I don't WANT to. He scares me."

"You idiot! It was your idea to come over here!" She reached out into the hall and yanked the owner of the voice into the room.

The other girl came stumbling in, banged her knee on a low table, yelled, and proceeded to whimper as though she was in great pain. Holmes stared at her. She had light brown skin, curly dark brown hair pulled back in a ponytail, and dark brown eyes behind a pair of lightly built glasses. She was also tall and slender, like her friend, but she was wearing white socks, thin red pajama pants, and a white T-shirt with a picture of a dog with a rose in its mouth on it. Under the picture of the dog were the words "What's not to love?" Covering her entire ensemble was a fluffy red bathrobe, the belt of which she now adjusted as she tried to straighten herself out after colliding with the table.

Delores sighed and turned to Sherlock Holmes. "Hello," she said. "We don't really have any idea how we got here. I'm Delores, and this is my friend Kira."

"Sherlock Holmes, I presume?" Kira asked brightly. Delores surreptitiously attempted to kick her in the shin.

"STOP PARAPHRASING PEOPLE ALREADY!"

"Paraphrasing is my friend, it will never ever end."

"ARGH!" was all the response she got. Kira grinned brightly and waved at Holmes.

"Hi! I'm you and you're me and it's splendid we got to meet because otherwise we would have gone through the rest of our lives being horribly confused, I daresay!"

Holmes shook his head and sank into a chair. "I don't…what? Who are you people?"

"We're timetravel – OW!" Kira glared at Delores, who had elbowed her sharply in the ribs.

"I know this sounds crazy," Delores said to Holmes, "but we were just having a sleepover, and Kira went to get some more soda. Then she said the hallway had disappeared, and there were horses and carriages going by in the street outside. I came to look, and she was right. Then she saw you, and thought you looked like Sherlock Holmes. So, she persuaded me to come see if you really were Sherlock Holmes. So, here we are, and here you are, and you are Sherlock Holmes, and don't listen to Kira because about half of what comes out of her mouth is total gibberish anyway. At least, it is when she's hyper."

Holmes ran a hand through his hair. "Hyper? Sleepover? Soda?" he repeated. Kira looked off in a random direction.

"I say, is there an echo in here?"

Holmes glared at her. "Young lady…"

She turned to him, smiling as she did so. He found her smile slightly disturbing – it was large and bright and shiny and bordering on the edge of maniacal.

"Yeeeeeeees?"

"Never mind." He turned to Delores, who seemed to be the…saner of the two girls. "You. Delores. You two aren't from England, are you?"

"How'd you guess?" she asked sarcastically. "Not only are we not from England, we're not even from this century."

"WHAT?!" he exploded, then calmed down some. "I'm sorry…but that's just a little hard to believe."

"This whole thing's a little hard to believe. I'm just as confused as you are." Delores glanced at Kira. "She's the only one who seems to not be having a hard time understanding this."

Kira stared at the fireplace, muttering under her breath. "Deck the halls and walls and trucks and trees and buses and cars and SUVs…with HOLLY!" She spun around and clapped Delores on the shoulder. "It's only FOUR MONTHS until Christmas!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

"This has got to be some sort of weird dream," Delores murmured. Sherlock Holmes frowned.

"I do not believe it is, mademoiselle, for it is highly unlikely that you and I would share the same dream. Either that, or you are both figments of my imagination, yet you seem to think that I am a figment of your imagination, and we cannot have it both ways. Therefore, it must be real."

"You just confuse me even more."

"Perhaps…your friend knows what's happening." Holmes glanced at the other girl. She frightened him – only a very little, but it was enough to make him hesitant about speaking to her. After a brief pause, he said, "Miss Kira. Do you know why you are here?"

Kira clapped her hands and nodded. "Uh-huh. You see, what happened – what I think happened – is that we – Delores and I – somehow got swept up in a rift in the time-space continuum or something like that, and as a result, we got dumped here, in your universe. Now, normally these things don't happen without a reason, so we must be here to help you with something."

Holmes frowned. "I don't need the help of two teenage girls."

"Ah, but you may need the help of two INSANE teenage girls! Non?"

Holmes stared at her before shaking his head and standing up. Going over to the fireplace, he filled his pipe with tobacco, but didn't light it. "I don't understand you. Exactly what century are you from?"

"We're from the 21st century," Delores said. "At least, I think we are. We might just have fallen into that century from another century, and then have stayed there so long that we thought we were from that century."

There was the sound of something hard hitting something else hard – the floor, as a matter of fact – as Kira darted forward, tripped, and fell over. Jumping up, she exclaimed,

"OF COURSE! That makes PERFECT sense! I've always known I was an alien! That I had another life…somewhere out there…what a simply ingenious theory, Delores! BOW DOWN BEFORE THE BRILLIANCE OF ME FRIEND!" she commanded Holmes, who simply gave her a cutting look and then stuck his still-unlit pipe in his mouth.

"Well…that still doesn't answer the question of why you're here."

"Maybe we're not really here. Maybe this is all an illusion. Maybe I'm going insane," Delores growled.

"Maybe you're sleepy and grumpy," Kira said, patting her on the head and jerking her hand away when Delores tried to bite it off. "Besides, you ARE insane. You admitted it at the movies today, remember?"

"No, I don't remember. But anyway."

Kira clapped her hands together suddenly, making Holmes start in an alarmed manner. "I'VE GOT IT! We're obviously here to help you out with some problem in the near future, since that's how these sorts of things generally work. And if this is an illusion, brought on by excessive discussion of you and practical inhalation of soda, well then, we can stay here with you until the problem we're supposed to help you with arises!"

Holmes shook his head. "No, you won't! This is not an illusion! Even if it is, it's MY illusion, not yours, and I don't want you staying in my home in my illusion."

"Well," Kira countered, "If we're really an illusion, then we shouldn't bother you that much. Besides, It's OUR illusion, not yours."

"My illusion."

"Ours."

"Mine."

"Ours."

"Mine," he growled.

"Ours!"

"Mine!"

"YOU TWO STOP IT!" Delores finally shouted. "This isn't getting us anywhere. Who cares whose illusion it is? Anyway, I'm starving. I don't suppose you have anything to eat with a high concentration of sugar in it?"

Holmes paused in his argument with the annoying 14-year-old to glance irritably in Delores's direction. "Mrs. Hudson baked a cake this morning -"

"CAKE!" Kira screamed, and bolted for the door. "KEKI KEKI KEKI! CAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAKE! CAKECAKECAKECAKECAKECAKECAKECAAAAAAAAAKE!"

"Things begin to look up," Delores said brightly, and waved to Holmes. "Well, we'll be back." And she ran off downstairs.

Kira (Masque): Hey! So, what'd you think?

Delores: I hope you liked it. We know Sherlock Holmes is acting a little bit out of character - sorry about that.

Kira: Please review! It might induce us to write another chapter. Plus, you'll get leftover cake!!

Delores: If there IS any leftover cake...

Kira: Good point. Um. Well, we'll be going now! Bye!